When I tell stories about Vietnam, I can not avoid stories about war when Vietnamese were in more than 1000 years under domination by Chinese, 2.5 centuries in Trinh - Nguyen civil war, 87 years under French colonialism and a 20 year ideological war 'Vietnam War'.
Indeed, I love to go back to the stream of history to know what it happened via books, local stories and field trips to old battle fields. I and my best friend often discuss about history and in summer 2 years ago we decided to go to Hamburger Hill, where witnessed a bloody 10-day battle between US. Army, ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) against NVA (North Vietnamese Army) and NLF (National Liberation Front/ Vietcong), in Vietnam War.
After a 2 hour trip by motorbike from Hue City, we arrived A Luoi, a mountainous district which is next to border with Laos. On the way, we passed Camp Birmingham which has nothing left and now replaced by eucalyptus farm.
We had an bad experience with Google Map! We followed the direction on phone and when we were stopped by a large stream, we knew that we trusted a wrong technology buddy. Therefore, after asking some locals, we found a bridge to cross the stream, and we took a photo of this communal house as landmark for next time. However, Google Map can show you the right way if you start to use it on Dong So road/ T20 road.
We arrived the root of hills where we had to parked our bikes and started our walk. We cut a stick for each and applied anti-leech medicine before a 40 min walk to the top of Hamburger Hill/ A Biah hill in Vietnamese. Actually, we had to climb 2 hills before getting the Hamburger Hill.
We were fooled by a nice stair walkway at the beginning. This is how it looked on the way because not many people visit this place. We had to go through this tube of trees on the way. We had food and water in our rucksacks and it is so needed.
After we got the first hill we saw some signs on the trail about hospital, LZ (landing zone), bases... until we got the top of Hamburger Hill. The trails to mentioned spots on signs were so condensed with vines to go.
Here we are! There is a memorial built by local authority for this battle. The intense and controversial battle happened from May 10 - 20, 1969, a year after the Tet Offensive 1968 in Hue City and other cities in South Vietnam. Paratroopers of 101st Airborne Division engaged the NVA 29th Regiment on this hill (named as Hill 937 - the height of the hill) in this bloody battle which killed 630 NVA and 72 US. as well as 372 wounded.
The battle ended in May 20, 1969 after the reinforcement from US. Airborne battalions and ARVN battalions. To describe the battle, journalists named this battle over Hamburger Hill after a speak by 19-year-old Sergeant James Spears: “Have you ever been inside a hamburger machine? We just got cut to pieces by extremely accurate machine gun fire.” However, in June 5, 1969 the Hamburger Hill were abandoned by the US. because it had no real strategic value!!!
After a 30 min going down hill, we grabbed a quick lunch in A Luoi town. Then we were heading to A So airport which is located in the same A Shau Valley with Hamburger Hill. It took us about 45 minutes South to get there. Again! Don't trust Google Map. Go South until we saw a big green sign of direction: "A So Airport =>" on the right. We followed the instruction and got this sign: Frontier Area, border with Laos. The same to Hamburger Hill, we were about 1 mile to Laos.
The scenery were very lovely with rice paddy fields and mountains although it was hot then. Finally at 1 p.m, we were in middle of nowhere and we saw many cow eating grass. We did not know that we arrived! Actually we were in the old runway of A So Airport.
There is a museum about Agent Orange there but it was locked so we could not go in. Because we are Vietnamese, we do not need permission from local authority to see border area. Official permission to go to border area such as Hamburger Hill and A So airport are required to non-Vietnamese citizens. However, it is simple to get permission by phoning or emailing to A Luoi Tourist Office and provide your information. It cost $2.5 only!
To finish my long road trip on motorbikes which hurt our butts, we stopped to swim in Pârle spring on the way back home. Friendly local ethnic Pa Cô people have built some stilt tent for tourists.
Cool water for swimmers but the road is pretty hard to get in.
They served chicken BBQ with hot pepper and salt. We had no table but rock to sit on and enjoyed our food. We were back home about 5:30 p.m.
It was a great day to relive a part of history in a field trip. Moreover, it is great to see the reality beside hidden truth in coursebooks.
